


Sometimes You Just Might Find

by cuttooth



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Asexual Martin Blackwood, Internalized Acephobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mention of having sex reluctantly, Mention of sex while intoxicated, Outing, Scottish honeymoon ending, Sex averse ace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-12 02:22:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28752840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuttooth/pseuds/cuttooth
Summary: Having sex isnormal.It’s what people in relationships do. Martin doesn’t know why he has the hang-ups he does, but he just needs to get over them and learn to relax a bit. Having a couple of drinks helps, he finds.*Martin spends a long time wishing to be normal.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims, Minor Martin/OMC
Comments: 32
Kudos: 229





	Sometimes You Just Might Find

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Aspec Archives Week, for the prompt “wish”. 
> 
> Title from the Rolling Stones, because you can’t always get what you want, and sometimes that’s a good thing.

Martin spends a long time wishing he was normal. 

It starts when he’s fourteen. Well, no, it starts much earlier than that, but it’s when he’s fourteen that the nebulous muddle of feelings coalesces into something impossible to ignore. That’s when all the boys and girls in his class start making eyes at each other while pretending they aren’t; start talking about who they’d like to snog behind the bushes at the bottom of the sports field, and Martin feels something twist in his stomach when he realizes that the person he’d like to be behind the bushes with is Stephen Dowling, who has dark hair and blue eyes and snaps gum between his teeth all day long. 

Martin never says anything about it, of course, tries not to even think about it, but he knows it’s not normal. As if he needed one more weird thing about him along with all his sick mum and his jacket that pulls tight across his shoulders, the seams fraying because he needs to get another year out of it before they spend money on a replacement. He keeps his head down and secretly believes that this part of his life will never be over. 

*

Eventually, that part of his life is over. 

He is nineteen and living in London in a cheap flatshare with three other people, he has a job at a real academic institution, and he has a _boyfriend._

Ramesh is sweet and funny and has soft brown eyes with the longest eyelashes Martin’s ever seen. His heart flutters in his chest every time they’re together, his breath catching in his throat and spilling out as laughter. Martin feels normal, because this is London and nobody cares if he walks down the street with Ramesh’s hand in his, if he kisses his boyfriend in the queue for the chippie. It’s like a weight Martin never knew was there lifted off his chest and he can breathe properly for the first time in his life. 

He and Ramesh go out for almost a month before they’re in Martin’s flat alone one night, all the others gone out, and Ramesh presses him down on the sofa and kisses him and crawls a hand inside Martin’s jeans. Martin feels hot and cold all at once, his stomach coiling up and every muscle in his body tensing for fight or flight. He pushes Ramesh away—too hard, too clumsy—and guilt courses through him at the hurt look in Ramesh’s soft eyes. 

“What’s wrong?” Ramesh asks, and Martin can’t say, his heart pounding and his hand clenched painfully tight against the arm of the sofa. 

“Sorry,” he’s able to say eventually. “I just, umm…”

“It’s all right,” says Ramesh, though he still looks hurt and confused and Martin has the feeling it’s not actually all right. “I probably surprised you. We can wait for next time, yeah?”

“Yeah,” says Martin, grateful at the reprieve. They sit on the sofa and watch a film instead, and Martin scarcely follows the plot as he tries to calm the adrenaline rushing through his veins, making him want to flinch every time Ramesh’s shoulder touches his. 

Next time is the same. Martin apologizes again, and Ramesh says it’s all right again and then two days later breaks up with him. 

“I just don’t think it’s working out,” he says, and Martin knows it really wasn’t all right after all.

*

Martin’s sick of wishing he was normal, and what is it they say: _fake it ‘til you make it?_

He gets drunk and takes home a man he doesn’t know and has sex. He scarcely remembers it the next day and he’s too hungover and miserable to try, but he’s proven to himself that he can have sex and that’s the important thing. 

Having sex is _normal._ It’s what people in relationships do. Martin doesn’t know why he has the hang-ups he does, but he just needs to get over them and learn to relax a bit. Having a couple of drinks helps, he finds. 

He has a few boyfriends here and there, and having sex really isn’t a problem. He can never relax enough to really enjoy it, which does bother some guys, but it’s fine. There are even some nice things about it, like feeling close to someone. 

Eventually, he thinks, maybe he’ll stop feeling like he’s faking it. 

*

It isn’t that he gives up on relationships. It’s just that there are so many expectations that Martin feels he always fails to live up to, so many rules that it seems like everyone but him instinctively knows. Trying feels like more hassle than it’s worth. 

And then he gets transferred to the Archives and there is Jonathan Sims with his imperious glare and devastating voice and Martin is fourteen all over again watching Stephen Dowling snap his gum in Geography class. 

“You really need to stop mooning,” Tim tells him. They’re at the Institute holiday party and they’re all a bit sloshed, and Martin can admit to himself that yes all right he was mooning a bit over Jon, who’s stood at the bar with his back to them, talking animatedly with Elias. 

“I am not _mooning,”_ he says, because there’s no reason he has to admit it to Tim. “I was just...contemplating.”

“Contemplating Jon’s arse,” Tim snorts, and then Sasha plonks down three shot glasses on the table in front of them and sits down in a rush. 

“Who’s contemplating Jon’s arse?” 

“Martin, of course.” 

“I am _not—”_ Martin begins to protest, but Sasha shushes him, pushing a shot into his hand. It smells of cinnamon and the liquid inside is bright red. 

“Hopeless case,” sighs Tim, and drinks his shot. Sasha does the same and then gives Martin a sympathetic smile, her eyes a little bit unfocused. 

“If it’s any consolation, Jon doesn’t shag anyone.” 

“Sasha!” Tim scolds, and she suddenly seems to realize what she’s said, her eyes going wide. 

“Shit,” she says. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said, not my place. Martin, please pretend you never heard me say that.” 

“I won’t,” Martin promises but his brain is snagged on _‘Jon doesn’t shag anyone’,_ how she said it so easily, matter of fact, as if it wasn’t a big deal at all. He looks up at the bar where Jon is still standing with Elias, his slim hands gesturing as he talks. 

“Drink your shot,” Tim tells him. “It’ll help you forget about Sasha’s big mouth.” 

Martin drinks his shot, which is absolutely sickening, but he doesn’t forget. 

*

There is one bed in Daisy’s safe house. 

It’s evening when they arrive and Martin is exhausted, a bone deep weariness that might be from the travel or the fear or the fog that’s seeped under his skin. Jon looks tired too, dark circles under his eyes and now that Martin’s really looking at him for the first time in months, he’s amazed Jon hasn’t just shivered apart at the seams by now. He is filled with the desire to take Jon in his arms, as if he might hold the fragile pieces of him together, and he thinks that he could. 

He _saw_ Jon, in the Lonely, even if they haven’t talked about it since. Saw how Jon felt about him, so yes, Martin thinks he could put his arms around Jon and it would be welcome. He isn’t sure why he doesn’t, except that there’s a part of him that still feels like it’s trapped behind glass, abstracted and numb, and it keeps his arms by his sides while his heart yearns against his rib cage. 

In the meantime, there is only one bed, and they are both stand looking at it for a few moments, considering the implications and the fact that they have only just found each other again after months of absence. 

“There’s enough room,” Jon says eventually, his voice soft and tired. Martin nods; there is enough room. 

It’s cold, and they both climb under the covers in socks and tracksuit bottoms and long sleeved t-shirts, pile the thick feather duvet and two blankets over them. It feels like being cocooned, their combined body heat gradually warming the mattress, the slow even sound of Jon’s breathing warming something in Martin’s chest. 

_He’s here, he’s here with you. You’re here with him._

In the gentle dark they gravitate together, drawn close by the longing that’s suffused all their months apart. When Jon’s lips press gently against his, Martin thinks his heart might burst. He kisses back, and at last that trapped part of him breaks free and he lifts his arms to wrap around Jon, pulls him against his chest. Jon makes a soft, surprised sound and he breaks the kiss. 

“Martin,” he says, careful the way he has been since he brought Martin back, as if a wrong word might shatter him. “Martin I need to tell you, before this goes any further—”

“It’s okay,” Martin tells him. “I don’t want to have sex with you either.” It feels so good to be able to say it that Martin could cry. 

“Oh,” says Jon, and then huffs a soft laugh. “Well that’s—that’s good, then.” 

He kisses Martin again, and leans in against him, close and warm and filling every part of Martin’s awareness. Martin knows he left all hope of normal behind years ago, before worms and fog and evil circuses. But the fact that he gets to have this—just this, with the man he loves; no expectations and nothing to fake; for the moment at least, no fear. It’s far, far better than normal. 

And Martin couldn’t wish for anything else.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr @cuttoothed; twitter @cut2th


End file.
